After Midnight

by Merline Lovelace

  “It’s going to blow!” he yelled, staggering to his feet. “The whole damned thing’s going to blow!”

  Jess never saw the spark that ignited the fuel. With a desperate lunge, Ed shoved her over the side. She tumbled into the bayou at the same instant the world seemed to explode.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Steve walked out the rear door of the low, single story building housing the Walton County Sheriff’s Department in DeFuniak Springs a little past nine a.m. and headed for his cruiser.

  Long habit narrowed his eyes to check the prisoners from the adjoining county jail detailed to work grounds maintenance. The same habit had him scrutinizing the appearance and attitude of the guards who supervised the prisoners.

  This morning he gave the grounds detail only a cursory once over, however. One nagging question occupied his mind. One question only.

  Why was there no record that Wayne Whittier bought or sold drugs?

  Steve had found no reference linking him to drugs in the computer, in old police logs, or in reports of local busts dating back to the days of the Blue Crab. He might have shrugged off Frank Blackwell’s claim that Helen’s boss at the Blue Crab had supplied her with cocaine if not for a vivid memory.

  He could feel the rowboat rocking under him. See the turtle sunning on a branch. Hear Cliff Boudreaux’s deep voice as he related how Helen was flying high the night she was assaulted.

  On rum and coke.

  The kind you snorted.

  Cliff knew drugs were going down at the Blue Crab. So why the hell hadn’t he marked the roadside dive and its owner as…

  “Sheriff!”

  The shout snapped Steve’s head around. His shift lieutenant hurried out, the hazy sunlight glinting on the accoutrements of his dress-down uniform.

  “Marine Ops just called in a weather warning. The Coast Guard station at Destin reported a squall spinning up out on the bay.”

  Steve squinted at the low-hanging clouds to the south. They didn’t look threatening, but a good twenty-five miles separated DeFuniak Springs from Destin.

  “Any reports of injury or damage to ships?”

  “Not so far.”

  “All right. Keep me advised.”

  “Will do.”

  The call from dispatch requesting immediate activation of the Emergency Operations Center came when Steve was a mile from the turn-off to Cliff Boudreaux’s place. Grabbing his mike, he keyed the transmit button.

  “In response to what emergency?”

  “Eglin reports an explosion and major fire. They’re requesting all available assistance from local fire and police departments.”

  His first thought was that one of the Eglin’s aircraft must have gone down. His second, that the liquid nitrogen used to drop the temperature in the gigantic climatic laboratory on base to minus seventy degrees had somehow exploded.

  Only as he re-keyed his mike did Steve remember Jess’s four million gallons of polluted fuel.

  “Activate the Ops Center. I’m returning to base immediately. Advise me as soon as you know what’s on fire.”

  “It’s their tank farm,” the dispatcher replied. “The whole damned thing’s gone up. The guys at our substation say you can see the black cloud of smoke all the way across the bay.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jess had read histories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. She’d watched CIA and military intelligence videos of the oil fields the Iraqis had set afire when they retreated. She’d participated in disaster response exercises where old aircraft and even whole buildings were blown up.

  But never, ever, had she imagined anything like the hell that surrounded her when she thrashed to the surface of Weekly Bayou.

  A black, impenetrable cloud shot with flames surrounded her. Scorching heat seared her skin and threatened to blister her eyeballs. Smoke burned into her mouth, her lungs. The deafening roar blocked all other sound.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she gulped in the black, oily smoke and jack-knifed back under the water. She had no way to judge her direction as she scissored wildly with legs and arms. The frantic movement propelled her forward. Toward the dock? The shore? The burning barge?

  Her chest screamed with agony before she surfaced again. A sob of relief tore at her throat. Thank God! She’d cleared the burning ring of fire! She rolled to her side, intending to strike for the grassy shore. Caught sight of the body floating face down a few yards away.

  The burned, burly torso and shredded fatigue pants could only belong to Ed Babcock. Another sob ripped into her throat. She wouldn’t let it go, refused to cry out to the immobile figure. Swimming to his side, she flipped him over and hooked an arm under his chin.

  Smoke billowed across the bayou, thick and blinding, as she kicked toward shore. She heard a splash, felt hands grab at her shirt, at her arm, at the body she towed behind her.

  “I’ve got him.”

  Lieutenant Ourek’s blackened face thrust through the smoke. His glasses were gone. So were his eyebrows.

  “I’ve got him, colonel. Let go.”

  With the aid of the oil-blackened Sergeant Weathers who came running up at that moment, Ourek struggled to heavy Ed Babcock’s body out of the water. Jess crawled up the bank on hands and knees, weak with relief that at least two of her people had survived the explosion.

  Too exhausted to do more than sink back on her heels, she could only pray as Ourek pumped Babcock’s chest and Weathers breathed air into his lungs. They were still working on him when she gathered enough strength to push to her feet.

  Damage assessment. She needed to conduct a damage assessment. Direct the crews of rescue vehicles she heard wailing in the distance. Take control of the fire before it won control of her.

  To her dismay, the situation was worse, far worse, than she’d imagined. The forward barge had exploded. Burning fuel coated wreckage, the empty barge behind it, the crumpled dock. Flames danced like St. Elmo’s fire along the mangled metal gangplank, making their inexorable way toward the dock operations building.

  “Stay with Ed until help arrives,” she croaked at the two men. “Then come find me. I’ll need your expertise.”

  Shoving her wet hair out of her eyes, she stumbled into a jog, covered a few yards, broke into a run. She was racing around the end of the bayou when the underwater pipeline erupted. Shooting straight up out of the water, spewing a fine spray of oil, it, too, caught fire. Horrified, she watched flames burst to life inside the pipe itself.

  If the pump crew hadn’t stopped the flow of oil…

  If the fire followed the pipeline to the pumping station…

  If it jumped the station and reached the massive storage tanks beyond…

  Praying as she’d never prayed before, Jess ran for the greenish-yellow fire truck tearing down Eighth Street.

  The first fire fighters to arrive on scene wore full protective gear, with hoods and respirators to allow them to operate in the thick, black smoke. While the others grappled with the hose, one of them half-dragged, half carried her behind the shield formed by the massive pumper.

  “This way, ma’am,” the fire fighter shouted through the speaker in his hood. “We’ll get you on oxygen and…”

  “I’m okay,” Jess yelled back, almost weeping in relief at the protection from the blistering heat. “Where’s the chief?”

  “He’s just pulling in.”

  Jerking free of his hold, Jess stumbled toward the emergency vehicle that squealed to a halt amid a growing army of pumpers and tankers. Eglin’s civilian fire chief jumped out to conduct the initial on-scene assessment, direct the response, and set up his mobile command post. Jess reached him seconds later.

  “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Blackwell, 96th Supply Squadron Commander.”

  Although she’d trained with the Eglin Disaster Response Force only a few times her arrival at the base two months ago, Jess’s years of experience stood her in good stead. Swiftly she recapped the horrifying chain of events and gave the Fire Chief
her best estimate of the number of military and civilian personnel present at the time of the explosion, many of whom were still trapped within the towering fortress of smoke.

  “We need to contact the crew at the pumping station!” Jess gasped. “Make sure they’ve completely shut off the flow of fuel.”

  The chief was on the radio before she finished.

  When Steve fought his way past the traffic backed up for miles outside Eglin’s gate, day had seemingly turned to night. Soot drifted down onto the log-jammed vehicles like ebony snow. Smoke blackened the sky and completely blocked the sun that had followed the freak storm.

  He’d already received an initial report from the scene, advising him of the scope of the disaster, but the brief report in no way prepared him for the fortress of smoke and flames that greeted him inside the gates. The nightmarish scene would have hit him even harder if he hadn’t also received a personal call from Eglin’s chief of security, assuring him that Lieutenant Colonel Blackwell was on-scene and actively engaged in disaster control efforts.

  Despite those assurances, his heart almost dropped into his boots when he finally arrived at the access control check-point and spotted the lone female in hard hat and protective gear huddled with a group of grim-faced officials.

  Hair blackened by soot and oil straggled down her back. White circles ringed red-rimmed eyes. He could read exhaustion in every line of her body, but when he flashed his badge and fast-talked his way through the check-point, he knew better than to suggest she take a break.

  She looked up, startled, when he appeared at her side. “Steve!”

  “You okay?”

  “Yes. I asked the Security Forces to relay a message to your central dispatch. Didn’t you get it?”

  “I got it,” he said gruffly. “I had to see for myself…and check on our troops. Walton County’s got a Hazmat team and five pumpers on-scene, and half my deputies working traffic control off base.”

  She shot him a grateful look. “The response from the communities around Eglin has been nothing short of incredible.”

  “Any casualties?”

  “One so far. A crew member from the petroleum barge. Two of my men were burned pretty badly.”

  His gaze skimmed the dozens of pumpers positioned around Weekly Bayou. High-pressure streams of water pierced the flames rising from the charred barge hulks, dousing them with little discernible effect.

  “What’s the estimate to put out the fire?”

  “Another couple hours. We shut down the pipelines in time to keep the fire from backing up to the tank farm, but we’d pumped almost forty thousand gallons into the barge before it went up.”

  Wearily, she shifted her hand-held radio and scrubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead.

  “The explosion fire destroyed our containment boom, and the tide carried the burning fuel into the bay. We’ve called in two C-130s outfitted with RADS – a Retardant Aerial Delivery System. They should arrive within the next half hour.”

  The fire-fighting c-130 tankers had dumped millions of gallons of retardant on the forest fires that had charred a good portion of the Florida panhandle two years back. Steve could only hope they proved as effective on the bay.

  “I’ll get out of your hair,” he said. “You can reach me through dispatch if you need me.”

  She gave him a distracted nod and headed back to the command center. She’d only taken a step or two when her radio crackled. She put it to her ear, answering as she walked.

  Suddenly, she froze. Steve saw her chin come up. Her entire body went rigid. She shook her head once, as if in fierce denial, then whirled.

  “Where’s your car?”

  He jerked a thumb at the cruiser parked at the edge of the log-jam of emergency vehicles.

  “Let’s go!”

  “Go where?” Steve demanded, breaking into a lope to keep up with her as she ran for his car.

  “Up the hill. To the tank farm. Hurry!”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. Shoving the key into the ignition, he jerked the cruiser into gear and brought it around.

  “Care to tell me what the problem is?”

  “That call was from my squadron’s command operations center. They wanted to advise me Billy Jack Petrie is at the pumping station.”

  A chill flowed into Steve’s veins. “Yeah?”

  “They say he wants to talk to me.”

  “Now?”

  “Now,” she answered through tight clenched teeth. “Or the whole base might blow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bill Petrie was waiting at the gate to the compound that housed the pumping station and tank farm. The tan-painted building enclosing the pumps sat at one end of the compound. Thick pipes rose from the earth, bent at a ninety-degree angle to snake through the building, then dropped back into the dirt on the far side. Behind the station loomed the five massive storage tanks.

  Steve’s cruiser squealed to a halt beside the chain link fence topped with razor-wire. Jess leaped out before the car rolled to a stop.

  “You wanted to talk? Talk!”

  “There’s another line. One put in years ago, before the present dock was built.”

  She reeled back a step or two. Her frantic mind had conjured up a dozen different reason for Petrie’s abrupt demand to see her. That wasn’t one of them.

  “Our grid maps don’t show a secondary line.”

  “The contractor capped it, but it’s still there.” He leaned forward, his dark eyes desperate. “I’d just started work in fuels when they built the present dock. I watched it go in, watched the contractor lay the new pipeline. I’m telling you, the old line’s still there.”

  “Why doesn’t it show on the grid?”

  “It did! I swear it did!” He thrust a shaking hand through his hair. “The engineers must have thought it had been removed when they updated the base maps. Hell, I didn’t even remember it until I heard the explosion and found out what happened. I called Al Monroe. He said to get my ass down here immediately and show Lieutenant Ourek where the old line is.”

  “Ourek’s in the hospital.”

  “I just found out. That’s why I had the command center contact you.” His eyes blazed into her. “You’ve got to trust me on this, Colonel.”

  Jess didn’t think twice. The past played no part in the raging inferno of the present. Grimly, she shoved the hand-held radio that linked her to the on-scene command center into the pocket of her scorched fatigue pants.

  “Show me.”

  Almost sagging in relief, Petrie snatched up a crowbar and started across the compound. Jess followed, but the thud of footsteps brought her whirling around.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Steve firmly, regretfully. “This is a restricted area.”

  He nodded, clearly unhappy at being left behind but respecting her authority. “I’ll wait for you here.”

  Her boots raising puffs of dirt, Jess followed Petrie past the pumping station to what looked like a small tool shed tucked up against the far side of the fence. Its metal sides had rusted with age. Dust and cobwebs obscured the solitary window. A padlock secured the rusted hasp on the door.

  “No one could remember where the key is,” Petrie said, grunting as he wedged the crowbar inside the hasp. He wrenched the bar downward twice before the lock gave and he put his shoulder to the door.

  The fumes that erupted when the door gave should have warned him. They certainly warned Jess. She shouted an instant warning.

  “Petrie! Don’t go in there!”

  He swung around. The crowbar in his hand banged against the metal building. For the second time that day, an explosion knocked Jess off her feet.

  The blast was a small one, thank God, fed by the fumes that had collected in the shed and not spewing fuel. Swearing a blue streak, she picked herself out of the dirt and stumbled toward the shack. Petrie was buried under a pile of burning rubble.

  The fumes were already dissipating, but Jess had no way of knowing whe
ther oil might explode through the abandoned pipeline at any moment and spark another explosion. Gritting her teeth, she reached for the crowbar.

  Steve was charging headlong across the compound when he saw her lift a metal bar and swing at what looked like a prone body. For the space of a single heartbeat, shock jolted through his body. Even as his boots pounded the dirt, his mind screamed a silent protest.

  No, Jess!

  No!

  When he reached her seconds later, she’d pried up a twisted sheet of metal.

  “Drag…him…out!” she panted, levering all her weight against the crowbar. “Hurry!”

  Between them, Jess and Steve dragged Petrie clear of the shack and rolled him in the dirt to smother the flames that licked at his clothing. Satisfied that they’d beat out the deadly tongues of fire, they rolled him onto his back.

  While Jess leaned her hands on her knees and sucked in deep, rasping gasps of air, Steve frowned down at the man’s waxen face and blue lips.

  “Hell!” Laying a hand along the side of Petrie’s throat, he searched for a pulse. “I think he’s having a heart attack. Get on your radio and call for help. I’ll start CPR.”

  Steve tilted Petrie’s head back and cleared his airway before straddling his hips to finger down to the pressure point on his sternum. As he locked his hands and began the rhythmic count, Jess put out the call for an EMT crew. She followed that with a request for a fire suppression team to lay a heavy coat of retardant over the shed and make sure the pipeline stayed capped. That done, she dropped the radio and crawled to Petrie’s side. Dragging in a breath, she put her mouth to his.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Twenty-six hours later, the last of the flames had sputtered out, the barge crew had been fully accounted for, and Jess ached in every muscle and joint in her body. Yet she insisted that Steve drive her by the hospital before they went home to eat, shower and collapse.